Hardbat Singles to the Semifinals at the Ping Pong World Cup

January 6, 2024

Sponsored by Mecano Sports, presented by Caliente.mx, sanctioned by ICTTF

(by Larry Hodges, photo by Larry Hodges: “Down 0-6 in the second, top seed Alexander “Flash” Flemming serves to Jan Olek. Will he come back?”)

Play began at 8:15AM on Friday, Jan. 5. There were 50 players competing in ten groups of five, with two tables for each group. The top two in each group (30 players) advance to the money brackets, the next three to consolation. Play will go to the semifinals today (Friday, Jan. 5), with the semifinals and final on Saturday, along with the same rounds for sandpaper, wood, and player’s choice. See the schedule for Saturday at the end of this article.

It’s a grueling tournament for some, especially some of the senior players. At 7,400 foot elevation here in Mexico City, the oxygen content is about 16%, compared to about 21% at sea level. I didn’t really notice it away from the table, but within minutes when I began to practice I was out of breath and my heart was racing. But that’s not all – at 7,400 feet, the air density is almost exactly 2/3 of sea level. So the ball just shoots through the air and off the end, and spin doesn’t die much since there’s less air friction. This affected play all three days – but given time, players adjust.

Play was supposed to start at 8:15 AM. However, there was a lighting problem – many of the lights wouldn’t come on. Five of the 16 tables had good lighting; four had very poor lighting; and seven had borderline or worse lighting. Some players played, but many on the affected tables (especially the four worst ones) didn’t want to play. An electrician came in and worked on it for a while, and the lights finally came back on at about 9:45AM. So that put many of the groups 90 minutes behind. However, with foresight, the tournament had been scheduled with extra time for each match to make sure things didn’t fall behind, and that allowed them to quickly catch up. By noon, they were pretty much caught up.

The rules for hardbat are simple – as close to possible as it was played during the hardbat era and for most of the sponge era. Hard rubber is just short pips without sponge. Matches are two out of three to 21, with each player serving five times.

Like sandpaper, there’s a diversity of styles, with plenty of attackers and choppers. While it’s easier to chop with sandpaper, hardbat allows you to dig into the ball more, giving a stronger backspin that’s harder to attack.

One thing I noticed about hardbat play was the high number of backhand serves. In sponge, forehand pendulum serves dominate, and that’s what I mostly use in both sponge and hardbat. But in hardbat, lots of players serve backhand. I think it’s because it gives slightly more control, allowing them to serve lower. In hardbat, a slightly high serve gets attacked by the top players.

A lot of money was at stake: 1st: $5,000; 2nd $2,500; 3-4: $1,500; 5-9: $500. Note the $500 for 9th – there will be playoffs for players who don’t make the quarters to see who gets that.

There have been more rated hardbat matches and so the seeding was a bit easier. The top four seeds won their groups easily. None of them lost a match, and they went a combined 32-1 in games. Here is a quick rundown of the ten groups – feel free to browse them or jump to the money single elimination stages afterwards.

Top seed Alexander “Flash” Flemming (GER) easily won his group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 12 in a game. (This is word for word what I wrote about him Sandpaper Singles, except there nobody got more than 7 – but games were to 15 there.) Third seed Pavel Gutierrez (MEX) upset second seed Petr Poliakov (RUS), 16,13.
Top seed AJ Carney (USA) easily won his group, going 4-0, defeating second seed Christophe Raynal (FRA) at 16,17. Christophe came in second at 3-1, winning his other matches easily.
Top seed Wang Shibo (CHN) sort of easily won his group, going 4-0. But he had to go three with second seed Vladi Kutsenko (RUS), winning -14,12,11. Vladi came in second at 3-1.
Top seed Andrew Baggaley (ENG) easily won his group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 11 in a game. Second seed Jan Olek (POL) finished second at 3-1. This was one of two groups where the five players finished 1-2-3-4-5 in order of seeding.
This is the first group where the top seed didn’t come in first – Huang Jungang (CHN) lost to second seed Beau Devos (BEL), -15,16,16. This was a great matchup between the attacking Huang and the chopper Beau. Huang actually led 15-12 in the third before Devos went on a 9-1 run.
Top seed Filip Syzmanski (POL) easily won his group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 16 in a game – except second Xavier Raynal (FRA), who lost at 19,9. But Xavier lost to third seed Bryan Aiglemont (ENG), 13, 21, so Bryan advanced in second.
Second seed Dwain Schwarzer (GER) easily won the group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 14 in a game. Third seed Gavin Maguire (IRE) defeated top seed Yohan Lecomte (FRA), 16,-14,18, to advance in second.
Second seed Adam Vitasek (CZE) easily won his group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 14 in a game – except third seed Bjarke Krog (DEN), who lost at 11,21, but finished 3-1 to advance in second. Top seed Alexis Perez (USA) went 1-3 to finish fourth, losing to the fourth seed Mattheiu Gonnin (FRA) at 15,-14,24 – yes, 26-24 in the third.
Top seed Paul McCreery (NIR) easily won his group, going 4-0, with nobody getting more than 15 in a game. Second seed Bradley Robbins (USA), mixing up attacking and chopping, won his other matches easily to go 3-1 and advance. This was one of two groups where the five players finished 1-2-3-4-5 in order of seeding.
It finally had to happen – the fifth (i.e. last) seed, Juan Galvan (MEX) went 4-0, losing only one game – 13,-20,18 against second seed Bryce Milford (USA) – to finished first. Bryce went 3-1 to finished second (losing to Juan at -17,17,9), but all three of his wins were battles: 13,-20,18 (from 18-all) over third seed, chopper/pick hitter Tiago Da Silva (BRA); 10,20 over fourth seed Marek Zaskodny (CZE); and 19,10 over the top seed, Daniel Vitasek (CZE), who finished third at 2-2.

Round One (Round of 32)

The interesting match here was Jungang Huang (CHN) vs. Vladi Kutsenko (RUS). Vladi, who basically loops over and over with his hardbat, wins the first, 24-22 (!), while Huang wins the second, 21-18. In the third (which is when I came over to watch), Vladi goes up 8-4. Huang slowly comes back, and ties it 13-13 – and then leads 16-13, a 12-5 run. But the momentum keeps changing as Vladi goes on his own 6-1 runs and leads 19-17. And then it’s Huang’s turn as he wins four in a row to win the nail-biting match, -22,18,19.

Round Two (Round of 16)

Four matches were of interest here.

Alexander “Flash” Flemming (GER) had his hands full for much of his match with Jan Olek (POL). Flash won the first, 21-15, but fell behind 0-6 in the second. Jan was playing out of his mind, and while Flash wasn’t playing so bad, he couldn’t seem to come back – at first. He was down 4-8, 5-10, 7-14, 10-16, 12-18, and 13-19. And then . . . with one incredible rally after another, with Flash noticeably raising his level of play to the level when he won the World Ping Pong Championships (sandpaper), he pulled to 16-19. But Jan won the next to go up 20-16 game point. At 20-18, Jan took a very needed timeout, hoping Flash would cool off. But as seemed inevitable to us watching, given how well Flash was now playing, he deuced it. And so Flash would obviously win the next two points and the match? Actually, after all that great play, it was an almost shocking letdown when Flash attacked two balls in the net in quick succession. And we’re on to the third! Except this time it’s Flash – once again on a roll – going up 6-0 and running away with it and winning the match at 15,-20,5.

AJ Carney, as you’ll see, likes to give his father Wayne indigestion. (Wayne told me this himself.) It’s probably not intentional, but AJ was about to pull off three Houdini escapes. In this round, he was up against Jungang Huang (CHN), who had just had that big comeback against Vladi Kutsenko. AJ is down 5-12 in the first, comes back to win, 21-19. (Houdini escape #1.) But Huang easily wins game two, 21-12, and we’re into the third. We’ll jump to AJ serving, down 16-19, while Wayne is trying not to have a heart attack. I’ll spare you the details – AJ, who has a strong serve and attack game, wins four in a row with some great rallies, and now he’s serving, up 20-19 match point. What does he do? He gets a rather weak return . . . and passively rolls it into the net with his forehand. “Chicken!” he (rightfully) yells at himself, and we can only guess what’s going through poor Wayne’s mind. (He told me afterwards he’s had to deal with this since AJ was six.) But AJ wins the next point with a net ball. Serving up 21-20, AJ takes the attack, makes two strong forehands – and when Huang counters the second off the end, AJ has pulled his second Houdini, 19,-12,20.

There were two other matches of note this round that I didn’t get to see. Dwain Schwarzer (GER) upset Paul McCreery (NIR), 16,-19,13. McCleery is already in the semifinals of Sandpaper Open, which continues tomorrow night (Saturday). And Beau Devos (BEL) chopped down US junior star Bryce Milford, -18,12,12.

Vladi Kutsenko (RUS) won the playoff for ninth and $500.

Round Three (Quarterfinals)

The prize money is skyrocketing here. There’s $500 for the quarters, $1,500 for the semifinals, $2,500 for second, and $5,000 for first. Imagine thinking about that while playing one of these matches.

Let’s get back to AJ, who is once again torturing his dad. This time he’s up against Adam Vitasek (CZE). They are both aggressive attackers, with AJ perhaps going for the forehand more, and Adam a bit more passive on the receive, willing to push and counter against AJ’s attacks. Adam wins the first, 21-18, AJ wins the second, 21-14, so let’s get to game three. They switch sides with Adam up 10-8, then 12-10. But AJ gets four in a row to lead 14-12, then 15-13, then 16-14. Then it’s 16-all, 17-all, and then 17-18, Adam leading – but once again, AJ is serving at the end, and this time he’s “only” behind 17-18. They have a good rally, AJ wins, 18-all. Then AJ backhands off (18-19, poor Wayne), but then Adam, after a long rally, hits his forehand off, 19-all. AJ follows up his serve with an aggressive backhand, and Adam against hits his forehand off, and it’s 20-19 match point for AJ. (Is Wayne holding his breath?) Remember in the previous round when, at 20-19 match point, AJ served, got a weak return, and rolled a weak forehand into the net? Well . . . once again at 20-19 match point, AJ served, got a weak return, and hits another forehand into the net, though not as weakly as before. So, once again it’s deuce and poor Wayne can only watch. But Adam serves and hits a backhand off, and then AJ serves and attacks, and moves Adam around until finally Adam misses another forehand, this one into the net. And so AJ is into the semifinals with his third Houdini act, -18,14,20. You can breath now, Wayne.

Another interesting match this round was penholder Wang Shibo (CHN) winning 13,6 over chopper Beau Devos (BEL). It was basically a clinic on how to play a chopper. Wang would topspin over and over, never very hard, with occasional pushes. He played the “No Miss” attacking strategy – and so all the pressure was on Beau to keep the ball in play. Since Wang almost never missed, Beau would eventually miss one or pop one up that Wang could kill. This would often lure Beau into attacking to get out of these rallies – and Wang would almost 100% block his attacks back, while Beau would miss some, since he’s a defender, not an attacker. Wang didn’t even look that good in the rallies, playing soft, even against seemingly high balls that he might have smashed – but again, his goal was to never miss, and he did that better and better as the match went on, as the scores show.

The other two quarterfinal matches (which I did not see) were Alexander “Flash” Flemming (GER) over Dwain Schwarzer, 16,-19,13, and Andrew Baggaley (ENG) over Filip Syzmanski (POL), 14,8.

And so the semifinals are set:

Alexander “Flash” Flemming (GER) vs. Andrew Baggaley (ENG)
AJ Carney (USA) vs. Wang Shibo (CHN)

Live streaming started at 2:30 PM Saturday (3:30 PM Eastern Time). However, hardbat will be done by then. Here’s the rough Saturday, Jan. 6 schedule, Mexico City time:

11:00 AM: Hardbat Open Semifinal #1
Noon: Hardbat Open Semifinal #2
1:00 PM: Hardbat Final
2:30 PM: Player’s Choice Semifinals
3:30 PM: Player’s Choice Final
4:30 PM: Sandpaper Open Semifinal #1
5:00 PM: Plain Wood Semifinals
5:30 PM: Sandpaper Open Semifinal #2
6:30 PM: Plain Wood Final
7:30 PM: Sandpaper Open Final